Here's the box that I made for our family reunion auction. It's just one of those plain pine boxes you get at the craft store, decoupaged with a collage of fancy paper, pictures of my family and family memorabilia. I Used gold leaf paint to paint the exposed edges and used that crackle medium and shellac to give it more of an antiqued look and to protect it from moisture.

My dad's new cartoon. 

That time there was a kidnapper

I think lots of people go through the kidnapper scare when they are kids. Our town's scare happened when I was in forth grade. I'd walk to school daily with Trisha and my little brother Joe.

One day that year, a some kid at Merriman Elementary said that a man in a blue car approached them and tried to lure them in the car. My mom was terrified. She called Trisha's mom and they arranged to walk us to school daily. We were told of what kind of car it was and to keep an eye out.

Trisha and I were on the case. We kept a notebook on us so we could write down the license of any blue car that looked suspicious. We met at her house for our detective club and shared our evidence. We were obsessed with the kidnapper.

I'm pretty sure all kids in our town were obsessed because more and more cases came in of little kids getting lured by the kidnapper. It was always a nondescript blue car. I'm pretty sure that most of the cases were hoaxes because I got the big speech from my mom that we should never lie to the police like the naughty little boys and girls that were lying about the kidnapper.

After the blue car kidnapper scare, our detective club moved onto other targets like following the town Jesus, and spying on anyone new that moved in the neighborhood. A few years later, the detective club turned into just watching MTV and talking about Teen Bop at Trisha's house. Trisha was the coolest.

That Time Grandma Was a Hooker

I was watching an episode of Three's Company at my Grandma Bernice's house where an undercover cop thought Chrissy was a hooker. Chrissy got all insulted by the accusation and was complaining to Jack about it. I didn't know what a hooker was, so I went into the kitchen where my mom was putting curlers in my grandma's hair.

I asked my mom, "What's a hooker?"

She looked shocked and then looked at my Grandma with a stressed look on her face. "Where did you here that word?" she demanded.

"TV. Some guy called Chrissy a hooker."

"Turn that garbage off!"

So, I turned off the tv and returned to the kitchen and asked again, "What's a hooker?"

My mom looks at my grandma and then looks at me. She blurts out that a hooker is someone who hooks things. She then motioned like she was knitting and said, "You know... they hook things like mittens and hats and stuff." She seemed pleased with her description and I was satisfied with that explanation, although why would Chrissy be mad that she hooked mittens? Adults are weird, so I just shrugged it off.

Well, months later my Great Grandma Norine knitted me a hat and some slippers. I was really excited about my new slippers and bragged to my third grade teacher that my Grandma was a hooker. I wonder what my Catholic school teacher thought about that.

That Time There Was Gorilla Warfare

As a kid, my dad would watch Planet of the Apes movie marathons in front of us. We were a tad bit young for such movies and I remember getting really freaked out when I heard on the evening news that guerillas had taken over a bridge in Central America and how the American soldiers might have to intervene. I don't remember the details because I was young, but I do remember being terrified that actual GORILLAS in the jungles of Central America had gotten a hold of guns and were taking over bridges and holding humans hostage. I think I even started to cry until my mom tried to explain to me that guerillas weren't monkeys. DAMN YOU APES!

That Time Molly Had a False Pregnancy

My mother likes her poodles. Every dog we ever had was a poodle or a poodle mix because of our allergies. My mom will talk about all the cute poodle mixes out there like a shitz-a-poo, Golden Poo (Golden Retriever/Poodle), Doxie-doodles, Cocker-poos, Labradoodles, and peke-a- poos. She likes her doodles and poos. She likes them mainly because of the poor luck we had with pure-bred (imbred) poodles. Every poodle we knew of had mental issues, including our toy poodle Buttercup Molly.

Molly was the craziest poodle around, but we loved her. One day, Molly started carrying my brother Jordan's baby toy around everywhere she went. She guarded it, made nests for it in blankets, carried it outside with her when she had to take a piss, and even rested it on her nipples to nurse it. She was crazy about this plastic, squeaky, baby toy.

We just figured that Molly really liked that toy, but then she started getting really vicious about it. She'd growl at us if we got too close to the toy. I swear her eyes turned blood red with anger every time we walked too close to her 'baby's' nest. Yep. Turns out that the crazy dog thought this plastic toy was actually her puppy. Some switch went off in her brain and she had a false pregnancy. Because of this her mother bear instincts kicked in full force.

We asked the vet what we should do, and he suggested that we put her on birth control pills to help even out her hormones. He figured it was just hormonal, and it would pass. Well, it didn't pass. The hormones didn't help. The only thing that helped was time. Eventually, her plastic puppy got old and it's head popped off, so we tossed it in the garbage. She had a few other 'puppies' over the years, but thankfully she didn't get as crazy as she did with her first 'born'.

So, my mom said that she had enough with purebred poodles and will stick to her doodles and poo mixes. I'll always picture my mom with her little hypoallergenic poodle mixes, and I'll always picture Molly with glowing red eyes, bared teeth and a little plastic, yellow, squeaky toy at her breast.

That time he spat Jesus out

Maybe third graders are too young to get the host. As a Catholic, you have your first communion in second grade. The teachers spend the first part of the year teaching you about how the host is actually the body of Christ and that the wine is his blood. You were never suppose to bite into the host. It was suppose to dissolve in your mouth. (That was before they started getting actual bread instead of those weird wafer Christs)

Well, all the third-graders were curious. If you bite into the host, will it bleed? There were many theories. One was that the blood is already out of the body because the wine is the blood. The other was that if you bit into the host, everyone would know because blood would start pouring out of your mouth. I thought that you would automatically go to hell if you bit into the host. I wasn't sure how it would happen, but I was positive that you would just vanish into hell and no one would ever see you again.

After mass one day, a few of the boys in class took the host, but didn't put it in their mouths. The teacher was preoccupied so a few of the kids were looking at the host up close. I think one kid pinched it to see if it would bleed. One of the boys told us that he was going to bite it. I told him that he better not or he would go to hell. He laughed at me, but there was a glimmer of worry in his eyes. He bit it and spat it out in the bushes to see if it was bleeding. I was horrified, but found out that you don't vanish and go to hell, and your mouth doesn't fill with blood. It took a few more years until I'd bite into a host though.